As we turn the corner into the back half of the season, answers are falling into place fast and furious. In Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld Season 1 Episode 7, “Into the Zhong,” Gugu (Lori Tan Chinn) takes Jentry (Ali Wong) into another dimension for a little history lesson.
Stepping through the portal Gugu opened in her bedroom floor, Jentry enters a dimension of shadows, seemingly devoid of color. Gugu warns her that Zhong is a dangerous realm. Jentry sees herself glowing and panics, thinking she’s a ghost. In her panic, she spills the liquid in a small censor Gugu’s tied to her waist. Gugu saves the censor, detaching it briefly. Once detached, Jentry appears alive again. Gugu explains the censor contains ghost essence which she bought from Solar Tang (Suzie Yeung). It disguises Jentry’s life force. No living thing is allowed in the Zhong.
Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld, “Into the Zhong”
Jentry translates Zhong to mean “the Middle,” and Gugu confirms that this dimension exists between the land of the living and the underworlds. After death, people can choose one of three paths. If their souls are pure, they go to the Great Beyond. If not, they can choose to remain a ghost or to suffer the trials of Diyu for a chance to be reborn. Ghosts don’t ever get reborn, and they eventually lose who they are as the people who knew them pass on.
Back in the land of the living, Ed’s (Bowen Yang) is live-streaming his defense of the portal when a big gui emerges and eats his phone.
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Paddling a wooden tub of a boat, Jentry and Gugu approach a large castle built on the back of a demon creature. Gugu asks Jentry if she’s ready for the truth about her parents. Jentry climbs a ladder up the side of the creature and asks where they are. Gugu tells her Bixi is a prison for ghosts. As they approach the prison, Jentry is struck by a fit of insecurity about meeting her parents and whether they’ll be happy with her.
Old Friends
Zhongkui (Sheng Wang) calls out Gugu’s name from his seat high atop the prison. He and Gugu confront each other with serious expressions. Jentry prepares to fight. Then they embrace and greet each other with cutesy kisses. They trash-talk each other with affection.
Jentry remembers Zhongkui from her class field trip to the Alamo, but he doesn’t recall which rule-breaking ghosts he rounded up there. Gugu reminisces about when she free-lanced for him, hunting ghosts. She introduces Jentry as her newly deceased grand-niece and asks Zhongkui to let them in so Gugu can give her the tour to make sure she’s scared straight as a ghost.
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Zhongkui opens the gate to the prison. A few ghosts take the opportunity to escape, but the barnacles on the island creature’s back shoot out tentacles to capture them and then encase the escapees in barnacle casings. After that, no other ghosts try to make a break for it. Leaving Gugu and Jentry to their tour, he leaves, telling Gugu to knock when she’s done.
No Escape From Bixi
Jentry asks Gugu what crime her parents committed to be imprisoned at Bixi. Gugu tells her they tried to possess living people in order to have a life again. Jentry finds her parents playing maj jong.
Moonie (Lucy Liu) sees her first and recognizes her. She and Peng (Jimmy O. Yang) rush to embrace her. Jentry squats down, crying over how happy she is to see them and how embarrassed she is about how she’s dressed for the occasion.
Ed the Terrifying
Ed wanders through the woods, looking for the demon that came through the portal. He finds it, a wolf demon with many fox tails. Ed attacks but is easily flung to the side. Someone jumps on the demon’s back, wrapping a piece of fabric around its neck and choking it out.
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Ed looks up and asks the newcomer if he’s there to steal more qi. Kit (Woosung), not wearing a skin suit, replies that he came to save Ed. Ed reluctantly thanks him, then realizes Kit choked out the demon with his skin suit and finds that gross. Kit, redressed in the skin suit, accepts the thanks, ignores the comment, and asks where Jentry is.
Nearby, Vice-Principal Wheeler (Sean Allan Krill) is foraging for mushrooms when he overhears Ed and Kit talking. He peeks through some bushes and sees them dragging the wolf demon toward the portal. Wheeler records a message to the Demon Girl subreddit, promising proof of Jentry’s connection to the demon realm.
Family Time
In Bixi, Jentry asks her parents for the truth. They tell her they wanted Gugu to keep the truth from Jentry because they were ashamed. They had been working as black market dealers in Daoist magic but wanted out so they could give Jentry a normal life. When Cheng (Greg Chun) offered them everything they wanted in exchange for some yellow robes in Gugu’s house, they thought it would be an easy job.
They went to visit Gugu with Jentry wrapped in yellow silk for the occasion. Once Moonie found the robes, they went to switch the swaddling cloth out for the robes, but the robe’s powers transferred to Jentry. Now Cheng wanted the baby for her powers, and they refused to give her up. Cheng killed them for their defiance.
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Weeping, Jentry declares that Cheng took them from her. Her powers igniting, she vows to make him pay. For a moment, she flickers into a living form again. Gugu says the censor’s ghost essence is getting low. They need to get out of the Zhong soon.
They return to the gate of Bixi, where Gugu knocks for Zhongkui to let them out. Jentry tells Gugu she feels ready to face the portal. Gugu’s happy to hear it. Nearby, a ghost woman calls out, “Moonie?” She kneels on the ground, half her face missing from a terrible injury. When Gugu sees her, she knocks for Zhongkui with urgency. When the gate opens, she rushes Jentry out and goes to the woman to ask why she’s in Bixi. The woman doesn’t answer, and Gugu leaves. Zhongkui even opens a portal to the world of the living so they can get back faster.
Portal Party
Ed and Kit drag the wolf demon back to the portal while Wheeler watches them from behind a tree. Jentry and Gugu arrive, wondering why this demon is lying outside the portal. Jentry catches sight of Kit. Gugu starts to light into him, but Jentry tells her to let her handle Kit. As Jentry approaches Kit, Ed notices the wolf demon is waking up.
The wolf leaps to its feet. Jentry ignites her powers to battle it, and Wheeler gets his phone out to record it. However, when the wolf demon sees him, Wheeler drops his phone and runs away screaming. Jentry tells Ed to stand back while she fights the wolf demon in case she messes up.
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She battles the demon and blasts it through the portal. Ed is despondent at the loss of his phone. Kit starts to congratulate her but she binds him in fire and raises him into the air. He tries to tell her he isn’t working for Cheng anymore. She explains it’s not about him working for Cheng. She knows that he slipped the shèn into her bag. He’s manipulated and used her. She refuses to let people like that into her life. Gugu reacts to that statement.
Jentry states she is going to close the portal, and he is going to be on the other side. She throws him at the portal but he climbs out of his skin suit and falls to the ground while the skin suit goes through the portal. He escapes, and Gugu insists they can deal with him later. Jentry redirects her attention to closing the portal.
It takes a couple of tries and a huge amount of energy, but she manages to close the rift. Afterward, she asks Gugu if she took her to Bixi to see Moonie and Peng because Jentry had refused to use her powers. Gugu apologizes, but Jentry understands. Her parents were trying to give her a normal life. Now, it’s up to Jentry to make one for herself.
Taking Control
At home, Jentry trains to fight Cheng with the lion statues, and Ed. She discovers some new skills she didn’t know she had. An online order for Gugu’s shop pops up on her email. Gugu heads out to package it up. Jentry seizes the opportunity and tells Ed she’s going to break her parents out of Bixi.
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She pulls the censor out of a cabinet and uses it to open the portal to the Zhong by writing the characters Gugu wrote on her floor in the air. Ed takes her hand reluctantly, and they step through.
In the Zhong, Zhongkui carries a sword out of the front gate. Jentry and Ed sneak in the gate as he walks by. On the way to her parents’ cell, she notices a cat sleeping and wonders why there’s a cat in Bixi. The cat wakes up, sees her, and takes off running with a yowl. It finds another cat and tells it Jentry’s back and they need to change back again. They take on the shape of Moonie and Peng, but the details aren’t quite right. While they’re squabbling, Jentry comes in, and they confess that her parents were never there. They’re bakeneko (Andrew Kishino), shape-shifters, and they pretended to be her parents as a favor to a friend.
Ghostly Assistance
Jentry’s fists are lit up with her fire power. She thinks about what they’ve said and concludes it was Gugu who planned the deception. This ignites her powers full-blast. The other ghosts disperse, calling for Zhongkui. Jentry pounds her fists on the mah jong table. A voice nearby comments, “I remember those flames.” The ghost woman Gugu spoke with earlier floats over, addressing Jentry as Moonie and cautioning her to be careful. Jentry tells her she isn’t Moonie and asks who she is. The ghost holds out a string of pearls. Jentry realizes they’re shèn pearls and tries to refuse them, saying she can’t take her memories.
The ghost insists they aren’t her memories, they are Jentry’s (although she’s still addressing her as Moonie). She tells Jentry a Mogui told her Jentry would come and want them back. Jentry assumes the Mogui must be Cheng and tries to hand the shèn pearls back, saying she’s tired of being a part of Cheng’s dispute with Gugu. Before she can make the ghost take them back, Zhongkui shows up. Jentry blasts him with her fire, then grabs Ed, and they run away. The prison barnacles put out black tentacles and try to capture them.
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At the front gate, the tentacles grab them both, and a barnacle shell grows around them. Zhongkui approaches with his sword, but the ghost possesses him and frees Jentry and Ed. Immediately after Jentry and Ed escape, Zhongkui rips the woman ghost out of him and throws her to the ground, where the barnacles cover her.
What Is Gugu Hiding?
Jentry and Ed fall back onto the floor of Gugu’s study. Jentry still has the woman ghost’s shèn pearls. She reaches onto the mantlepiece and finds a picture frame with a photo of her parents holding her. In the photo is the woman ghost when she was alive. Jentry realizes it’s her paternal grandmother, her nainai Iris (Crystal J. Huang).
Ed cautions that using more shèn pearls might not be a good idea, but Jentry is determined to learn what Gugu has been hiding. She puts the necklace on. A vision takes hold immediately. Moonie is carrying a sleeping Jentry and snooping through Gugu’s study. She finds the yellow robes Cheng wanted.
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Gugu and Peng run in. Gugu tells Moonie she cannot give Cheng the robes. It’s too dangerous. Peng tries to explain that they’re doing it so they can give Jentry a good life. Gugu attacks them. They restrain her with chains. She frees herself before they can escape with the robe. Grabbing a pair of magical glass cups, she draws the power of the robes out and redirects it into Jentry.
Present-day Jentry ignites with rage as the Gugu in the vision smiles in satisfaction. She tells Moonie and Peng that Jentry has the robe’s powers and she’ll never take them out of her. Present-day Jentry’s powers explode.
Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld is streaming now on Netflix.
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